Page 30 of The Enforcer

13Alfonso

I haven’t been homein just over a year. I usually try not to be away for so long — I’ve let my mother down enough — but the past year has been hectic. The first assassination attempt on Salvo had been a constant thorn in my side, and the last thing I wanted to do was bring that danger to my family’s doorsteps.

That’s what I tell Salvo, Giulio, and myself. It’s not a lie, but it’s not the full truth, either.

I don’t bother lying to my family, so I say nothing at all, and I’ve been staying away longer than I should.

Disappointment is a funny thing.

I’ve been letting my parents down for most of my life. I was sent home from school for fighting. I was sent home from church for stealing cigarettes from the priests. And I was run off of the beach at sixteen by Signora Costa when she caught me and that French girl on holiday with her family getting to know one another. What my parents wanted was four well-behaved boys. What they got was three… No, two good boys and Nicola and me. But at least Nicola has a respectable job, and he hasn’t moved far away from home and his aging parents like I have.

None of us has gotten married and given our mother grandchildren, which is the only thing she says she ever asked of us. I would beg to differ, but I’m never home long enough to engage that debate.

My entire life has been spent with my parents’ love and disappointment blanketing me, but each time I come home, what I find unbearable is my disappointment in myself. So, even though she doesn’t want to be here, I appreciate that focusing on Zoe allows me some space. Every minute I spend with her means that’s one minute when I’m not consumed by everything I’ve ever done wrong in my entire life.

This house was supposed to be mine. The plan had always been to shuffle us around these plots of land that my family has owned longer than anyone could rightly remember. Once I got married and had children, my mother had expected me to move here so she would be nearby. Instead, I moved to Naples. Each time I return to this house and this life that I’ve left, the certainty I feel about my life falters. But I don’t have the privilege to let that happen this time.

“You can have this bathroom to yourself,” I tell her. “And this room here. There should be some fresh sheets and towels downstairs at Nicola’s.”

“Did someone call my name?” Nicola sings as he huffs into the house.

“No,” I yell back.

“Maybe next time.” He rolls Zoe’s suitcase into view. “Or maybe my French is better than my English, yes?”

“Stop.”

He ignores me and winks at Zoe.

“When was the last time you changed the sheets up here?” I ask irritably.

He laughs. “Just last week,” he says, sounding offended. “Dario wanted to spend a weekend away from the rectory.”

“Rectory?”

“Our youngest brother is a priest,” I tell her. “Our mother’s favorite.”

Nicola makes a strange guttural noise, and I cut my eyes in his direction. “Do you have anything to eat?”

“Of course, I do,” he says. “Gli avanzi di mamma.” He frowns in Zoe’s direction. “I need a wife to cook for me.”

I crack my knuckles, and Nicola backs away, doubling over in laughter.

“Well, good luck finding her,” Zoe says. “I don’t cook or clean for myself, so I’m damn sure not doing it for a man.”

Nicola’s laughter rises. “Capisco! She’s perfect for you.”

Zoe sighs. “Can I shower? Alone?” she says. “My entire body hurts.”

“Oh, then you should give your fiancée a massage, Alfonso. You’re a better man than this.”

“I—”

“No, thanks,” Zoe cuts in. “You can take him down with you. I’d love to try your mother’s cooking once I’ve showered.” She smiles solicitously at me, nothing like a fiancée or a girlfriend but like a woman who is very used to getting men to do her bidding because she knows how beautiful she is.

She doesn’t need to bat her eyelashes at me, however. It’s my job to keep her safe and comfortable.

“Va bene, carina,” I say, trying to sound as if this is a thing I have said to her hundreds of times before. I lean down awkwardly to brush my mouth against her cheek in a simulation of a kiss.

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